Thursday, June 28, 2012

Van Gogh: Up Close

I am looking forward to seeing this exhibition in Ottawa later this summer.  Organized by both The National Gallery and the Philadelphia Museum, it opened in Philadelphia in the spring and Karen Wilkin writes in The New Criterion that, despite all we have already seen and heard,  there is indeed still something to learn about van Gogh.  She writes:  "...a visually arresting van Gogh exhibition that makes us consider his work in new ways, introduces unfamiliar works and even helps us to see familiar ones with unjaded eyes."  I enjoy Karen's many ways of describing the works, such as 'a dense silt of dabs and dots", " a near monochrome of bleached green", or "insistent gatherings of slender touches'.
Karen Wilkin's Review    Van Gogh: Up Close, National Gallery of Canada   Since I have not yet seen the show, I don't know what is in it, but here is one of van Gogh's commanding works: